Christianity under threat: ‘Worst Year Yet’: The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to Be a Christian: by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra

For decades, North Korea has clearly been the world’s worst persecutor of Christians. But now, another nation nearly matches it.

Open Doors recently released its 2018 World Watch List (WWL), an annual ranking of the 50 countries where it is most dangerous to follow Jesus. Approximately 215 million Christians now experience high, very high, or extreme levels of persecution; that means 1 in 12 Christians live where Christianity is “illegal, forbidden, or punished,” according to Open Doors researchers.

Kim Jung-un’s country hasn’t moved from the No. 1 spot on the list for 16 years in a row. “With more than 50,000 in prison or labor camps, such a ranking is little surprise for the totalitarian regime that controls every aspect of life in the country and forces worship of the Kim family,” Open Doors reported.

But rivaling it this year is Afghanistan, which ranked No. 2 by less than a point. North Korea’s total score was 94 (on a 100-point scale), pushed above Afghanistan’s 93 by a 0.6 difference in their 

Open Doors recently released its latest World Watch List (WWL). The annual list ranks the top 50 countries "where Christians face the most persecution," aiming to create "effective anger" on believers' behalf.

“This year, the threshold was higher for a country to make the list, indicating that worldwide levels of persecution have increased,” stated Open Doors in announcing its analysis of the "significant trends" in 2014 that drove persecution higher worldwide, "even in places where it has not been reported in the past."

So while countries such as Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) fell significantly in rank on this year's watch list (Sri Lanka dropped 15 spots to No. 44, and the UAE dropped 14 spots to No. 49), their level of persecution dropped only slightly from last year's list (by four points and two points, respectively, on a 100-point scale). 

Bahrain, Morocco, and Niger—were removed from the list this year, the level of persecution in each remained virtually the same from 2013 to 2014.

Overall in 2014, pressure on Christians increased in 29 countries, decreased in 11, and remained stable in 7. Three countries—Mexico, Turkey, and Azerbaijan—were added to the watch list this year. 

To get the complete report click go to: https://www.opendoorsusa.org/2018-world-watch-list-report/

Read more: ‘Worst Year Yet’: The Top 50 Countries Where It’s Hardest to Be a Christian | News & Reporting | Christianity Today

Germany: German coalition talks reach breakthrough: A look at what comes next

The all-nighter appears to have focused minds: Germany's two biggest political parties — the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) — announced on Friday morning that they had made a breakthrough in their exploratory talks, paving the way to formal coalition negotiations and, if all goes to plan, another iteration of the grand coalition.

The new agreement represents an important stage victory in the marathon negotiations for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who would certainly prefer a grand coalition to the other two options currently on the table: heading an unstable minority government, or a new election.

Should the negotiations with the SPD fail, a new election could well usher in the end of Merkel's time in office, as her CDU attempts to revive its fortunes following its worst election results ever. Her party took 32.9 percent in September's election, a drop of 8.6 percentage points on the 2013 result. This has resulted in much self-reflection in the party, along with speculation that Merkel's era was drawing to a close — and even debate about potential successors.

Read more: German coalition talks reach breakthrough: A look at what comes next | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 12.01.2018

USA - Shithole: Trump’s 'Shithole Countries' Comments: What He Meant - by Ryan Teague Beckwith and Maya Rhodan

President Donald Trump’s “shithole countries” comments ricocheted around the world, spurring criticism from U.S. allies, rebuttals from Americans with roots in those countries and condemnation from some in his own party.

Lost in the furor over his “shithole” comment is the argument that Trump was making at the time.

The White House held the meeting to discuss a bipartisan immigration deal that would help undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who got relief under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program, foreign nationals who fled manmade and natural disasters and received temporary protected status (TPS) in the U.S. and immigrants seeking to come to the U.S. through a diversity lottery.

That’s a lot to unpack, so we’ll walk through these one at a time. But here’s the short version: If you are upset about Trump calling African nations “shithole countries” and disparaging Haitians, you probably won’t like what he was proposing either.

Note EU-Digest: The new Yorker wrote: "President Trump’s credibility as a world leader has been, to borrow his vulgarity, shot to shit. With one word—just the latest in a string of slurs about other nations and peoples—he has demolished his ability to be taken seriously on the global stage. “There is no other word one can use but ‘racist,’ ” the spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner on Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said at a briefing in Geneva. “You cannot dismiss entire countries and continents as ‘shitholes,’ whose entire populations, who are not white, are therefore not welcome.”

We can not agree more: Donald Trump is a disgrace for America. 

Read more: Trump’s 'Shithole Countries' Comments: What He Meant | Time

Sharia Law - Islam: Greece limits Islamic Sharia law courts for Muslim minority

Greek lawmakers on Tuesday overwhelmingly backed legislation to limit the purview of Islamic religious courts over the nearly 120,000-strong Muslim minority in the region of Western Thrace.

Islamic religious courts will only be able to rule in family law matters such as divorce, child custody and inheritance if all parties agree, under the new law supported by major parties.

Regular Greek law will apply in cases where all parties do not agree to a religious court settling a dispute.

Greece is the only EU country that has Islamic religious courts.

State-appointed clerics, known as muftis, have resolved family law matters among Muslims in Western Thrace under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne between Turkey and Greece following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Among other things, the treaty involved a population exchange of some 2 million people between Turkey and Greece, except for on some Aegean islands, the Greek Orthodox community in Istanbul and the largely Turkish-speaking Muslim community in Western Thrace.

The Greek Orthodox and Muslim minorities were given certain minority language, cultural and religious rights under the treaty.

But in a strange twist of history, the Muslims of Greece fell under Islamic law while Turkey moved to a secular legal system in the Turkish Republic.

The Muslims in the northeastern corner of Greece near the border with Turkey are mostly ethnic Turks, although there is also a Bulgarian-speaking Pomak community.

Turkey has long taken an interest in what it deems Turkish-ethnic brothers in Western Thrace, drawing accusations from Greece that Ankara is interfering in its affairs.

Greece has been reluctant to change the law around Muslim family matters, fearful that it could prompt Turkey to request changes to the Lausanne Treaty.

Note EU-Digest: To allow Sharia, or any other religious law to function on a parallel status with local and national laws in EU member States is ridiculous and creates more problems than it solves.   

Read  more: Greece limits Islamic Sharia law courts for Muslim minority | News | DW | 10.01.2018

USA - Evangelicals: Trump policies and Christian teachings don't tally up, say Church of England leaders — by Carlos Barria

Another senior church leader in Britain has joined a chorus of voices speaking out against the “uncritical support” evangelical Americans have for Donald Trump. To them, the US president’s policies simply don’t tally up with the religion’s teachings.

Paul Bayes, a senior Church of England bishop, told the Guardian that he believed “self-styled evangelicals” who support Trump are evoking God in a way that contradicts his message of helping the poor.

“Some of the things that have been said by religious leaders seem to collude with a system that marginalizes the poor, a system which builds walls instead of bridges, a system which says people on the margins of society should be excluded, a system which says we’re not welcoming people any more into our country,” said Bayes. “Whenever people say those kinds of things, they need to be able to justify that they’re saying those things as Christians, and I do not believe it’s justifiable.”

His comments follow those of Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury. “I really genuinely do not understand” why conservative evangelical Americans support Trump, he said last month.

In his Christmas sermon, Welby, without naming Trump, also criticized “populist leaders that deceive.”

In the US, 80% of self-identified white evangelical Christians said they voted for Trump in the 2016 election, according to the Pew Research Center.

Reads more: rump policies and Christian teachings don't tally up, say Church of England leaders — Quartz

The Netherlands: New income requirements for residence as a highly skilled migrant in the Netherlands - by Pim Bouwmeester

The Netherlands sets a minimum salary for Dutch citizens based on age, the so-called Wettelijk Minimum Loon. Usually this minimum wage changes every January 1 and halfway through each year. This minimum wage applies if you are working in the Netherlands as a Dutch citizen or if you are working on your partner’s residence permit. Of course an employer can pay you more, but this is the legal minimum.

For further details and scales click on this link: New income requirements for residence as a highlyskilled migrant in the Netherlands

Climate Change: The media is bad at covering climate change and worse at covering solutions

While President Trump has turned bashing the mainstream media into a form of performance art, sometimes the press does deserve some constructive criticism. For example, look no further than the media’s inadequate coverage of climate change and potential solutions—inadequate, at least, according to a new report by the watchdog group Public Citizen. The group looked at news stories from a number of major U.S. news outlets to see how–or if–they covered what many consider to be the greatest threat to national security. More specifically, the group looked at whether the media was able to connect dramatic weather events–which the world had plenty of in 2017–to climate change. It found a “decidedly low” number of pieces that mentioned climate change in relevant contexts–such as drought, floods, and disease. Instead, the term “climate change” most often occurred in stories about record heat, but not issues like wildfires, record rain fall, or hurricanes, tropical storms, and flooding.

In fact, Public Citizen found that just 4% of the many stories discussing hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, or Nate made the connection to climate change.

Not only is the media barely mentioning climate change in context, but coverage of potential solutions to climate change is even more scanty–only 9% of all pieces mentioned solutions. Reporting on ways to possibly slow or even reverse climate change are critical now, particularly in light of the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, roll back U.S. climate policy, and promote coal.ML

Read more: Report: The media is bad at covering climate change and worse at cover